Re the buddy-buddy refuelling mentioned here. One problem: since the Phantoms were retired, all Israeli combat aircraft have receptacles for boom refuelling, whils buddy refuelling necessitates the use of drogues & probes. That’s not an insuperable problem, as the strike aircraft could be fitted with probes which fix into the receptacles, but that would
1) render them unable to use the boom-equipped B707 tankers, unless the tankers were fitted with hose attachments to their booms, &
2) make refuelling much more difficult, as the receptacles are not well-placed for flying a probe fixed to them into a drogue basket, especially if it’s one of the notoriously difficult to use ones which fit on the end of booms, famous for breaking probes (the RAF hates having to refuel from USAF tankers with those boom/hose combinations, because of that).
Alternatively, F-16Is could use probe-equipped CFTs, & F-15Is could use probe-equipped underwing tanks (unless someone designs & tests a probe-equipped F-15I CFT – no such thing exists yet). Both of these have the disadvantage of adding drag & reducing total fuel capacity slightly, & would require them to be bought (AFAIK both of these have only been made as prototypes, not put into production), & trained with. It would have the advantage of leaving the receptacles free for boom refuelling.
As with all the other proposed solutions, buddy-buddy refuelling requires something that Israel does not have, though at least in this case it is something that it could get.
A 747 tanker wouldn’t be enough, BTW. Not enough fuel offload for all the strike aircraft, & even if it did, it’d take too long to refuel everything from one tanker. You’d end up with streams of strike aircraft, rather than tight packages.
To add to the 747 tanker problem, you really need it to stay on station to top up returning fighters. If the Iranian air defense prove unable to shoot down strikers, you at least have to allow for them to use AB for defensive/combat action. No point in running out of fuel, half way home.
In short, as has been said before in this tread; Iran is outside IDF`s offensive range.
To add another option to Distillers ideas. What if the strikers does not have to return home ?
i am thinking of something old and fast here like the Phantoms. Load them up with bombs and let the pilots bail out when the load is delivered.
You need lightly loaded fighters for escort, and massive jamming.
Have Mossad come up with a plan to extract the pilots.
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